1 Introduction

2 How do the blind use a computer?

Screen readers.

3 What are the problems that screen reader users run into?

3.1 No labels

3.2 No control type or state

3.3 No keyboard access

4 Can a blind person who knows how to code fix these problems?

Sometimes.

5 How does this situation affect a blind person's productivity?

• Death by a million papercuts
• Lack of control
• Examples include IDEs, JIRA, Workplace/Workchat, Trello and Google Docse

6 Why Don't We Create Software Specially for the Blind?

7 So, What Should We Do?

• Make it easier to add accessibility to applications
• Educate developers
• Prioritize accessibility in companies

8 What about Emacs?

Emacs is customizable and allows developers to retrieve any kind of information.

9 How does Emacspeak help me?

• Convey if text is bold, italicized or underlined
• Play tones for different states, like when a node in org-mode is collapsed, or a checkbox in customize is unchecked
• Speak indentation

10 What if something in Emacs isn't accessible?

Example: org-capture

11 How else does Emacs make me more productive?

11.1 Skimming

11.2 Managing tasks, projects and team deadlines

11.3 Making Other Applications Accessible

12 Thank you

Parham Doustdar Team lead and developer at Booking.com parham90@gmail.com